MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AN 13 OBSERVATIONS. 
117 
Length, 7 feet 3 inches. It was an exact counterpart of the 
one previously landed, and which, no doubt, had formed part 
of a school hunting the fishing-grounds. (See also p. 58.) — 
A. Patterson. 
Notes on Rallus aquaticus. — I have frequently noticed the 
great difference in size between individual specimens of the Water 
Rail, hut was never more struck with the fact than whilst shooting 
with a friend at Sutton on November 13th ult. I often-times 
refrain from killing these birds, but, upon the above date, we had 
experienced rather a blank day, the waters being too high on the 
marshes for Snipe, and I had a young Retriever with me that 
needed encouragement ; so, when just before quitting our happy 
hunting-ground, what I could not help noticing to be a very small 
variety of the Water Rail, rose in front of me, T dropped it. My 
companion, who was walking some hundred yards away from me, 
almost immediately afterwards flushed and killed, what appeared to 
me at the time when it rose, to be a very large bird of the same 
species. Below I give the respective dimensions of the two 
individuals, and enclose two feathers from the axillary plume 
(l inch difference in these) of each. For further diverse dimensions 
see ‘ Zoologist ’ for 1886, vol. x. pp. 338 and 368. 
When comparing the two birds, and looking carefully for any 
slight difference of plumage, Ac., I discovered that the feathers 
upon the forehead of each, but more especially upon that of the 
larger individual, were apparently interspersed with little black, 
horny processes. These, by subsequent examination under the 
magnifying glass, I found to be the ends or tips of the feathers 
themselves, — the extreme points or tips of the scapus (rachis), 
or shaft, without any rami attached. Putting one such feather 
under the microscope, I found that these terminal points were not 
merely those of ordinary feathers, abraded by constant contact 
with vegetation, Ac., through which the narrow Rails had threaded 
their silent ways, but that the rachis was gradually enlarged 
from where the rami ended and then again contracted, so as to 
present the appearance of semi-transparent, hollow, brownish Indian 
club-shaped vessels, after the manner of Fig. 8, plate ii. facing 
p. 82, in ‘Zoologist’ for 1879 ; and reminding one somewhat of 
the bright orange-scarlet appendages to the heads of nestling 
